Announcing the all new Windows Central app-preview for Windows 10!

Ever since Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile came on to the scene people have been asking when will we redo our app.

Last week I gave you a sneak peek of where we were and today I can announce the public availability of the app to everyone!

This is a preview + UserVoice

First things first: myself and our developer, Daniel Gary, are still discussing some features and layouts that require some served-end changes. As a result, this app that you are downloading today is about 90% of where we want it to be, and there are still some rough edges.

We encourage everyone to take advantage the new Windows Central UserVoice page for app feedback, bug reporting, and feature requests: windowscentral.uservoice.com. Doing so (instead of telling us on Twitter) allows us to track things better and to prioritize, so we appreciate you using it.

Occasional app crashes and other quirks will undoubtedly arise as the team who tested this was very limited during development.

We expect over the next few weeks to release multiple updates to fix bugs, performance issues, and to add a few layout changes, so please take that into consideration if leaving a review! We're putting this app out there now due to the high-demand even though ideally we would take a few more weeks to get it perfect.

Re-Written for Windows 10

The new Windows Central App is re-written from the ground up for Windows 10. Therefore, it runs on Windows 10 for PCs, Windows 10 Mobile and supports Windows Continuum.

We suppose once Microsoft opens the Xbox One Store for submissions we can put it there too.

Since last week's sneak peek, we have done a lot of tidying up including smaller things like matching the title bar color to the theme.

Features

Our goal on the preview release was to get as many features in the app as possible to match the Windows Phone 8.1 version. This what you get:

Live Tile with the latest stories

Push notifications for new stories

Actionable notifications to reply to comments

Dark and Light theme

Choose your accent color

Log in to your Mobile Nations account

Commenting + up/down votes

Pull to refresh (and refresh button for desktop)

Embedded video playback

Share articles using the universal share picker

Search the site

Forums with full ability to log in, comment, quote and reply

Download app and game button for easier navigation

One-handed support with swipe for split-view menu or between articles

Other things include the ability to tip us on the news and browse our YouTube video channel directly. When trying to open a video, the app can hand off to third-party apps like myTube! and Tubecast.

Article formatting now reflects our full format on the web version including accessible hyperlinks, bullet points, quotes and more.

There are some other nifty additions like the Top button that lets you quick navigate to the first article and pull to refresh (on mobile) to keep the app up to date.

Push notifications for new articles, replies to comments and forum posts are also there, but these are still under development so your experience may vary!

Manage your notifications

As a side note, our site has a robust system for notifications on articles and comments. To configure yours for your account should you have trouble (or too many) please go to: www.windowscentral.com/follow when logged in to set it up. Thanks!

Thanks for your support

As a reminder, the new Windows Central App for Windows 10 is free and ad-free. We appreciate everyone patiently waiting for us to get this far, and we're very excited to continue refining this app this year.

If you are still on Windows Phone 8.1, you do not have to worry as we are keeping that app on the Store for legacy users going forward.

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Well I initially installed the new Windows 10 Mobile UWP app on Friday 2/19, and since have received two updates, one yesterday, and then to my pleasant surprise another update today bring it to v: 1.1.10.0----->so keep up the great progressing work WP Central Management! Will put it through a testing a give feedback later tomorrow!

Unpin then repin from app list...then resize the tile. Wait a bit...it should update. Also make sure you have the background task turned on in your phone settings, as well as making sure you have the notification setting in the app turned on.

Looks great, I'm having trouble with it locking up on .63. But it's a Preview, we should be used to that by now. Kind of a Windows Central App Insider Program. When's the next build Gabe?... I mean Daniel

I cannot make this up. I was crushing through the comments, loving the new app and came across a comment mentioning crashes. Thought to myself "it's been fine for me" and almost right after I finished that thought it crashed lol. I love the design and the download button is especially awesome. Keep it up.

Live tile isn't as much great I mean in old one it was better where we were able to see recent 3 news but here it's just one with it's pic! Would be better if they display news on top of the specific news!

I hope the new app is everything from the existing great, wonderful, and beautiful app PLUS new great features and functionality. Please don't follow the Microsoft coding strategy of tossing out great features and copying the google. Please forgive me for saying these outrageous comments. I know, no reasonable developer would take such a bizarre approach.... But wait, our favorite, "Microsoft" does?

I tried to post this on the new app with my 830, but it crashed :P Here are some things I noticed:
1. Please add scroll to top and bottom in comments. There is a top button in articles.
2. When viewing an article, the title also appears in the lower left menu and is really squished.
3.Yay for theme colors, but there doesn't seem to be an option to use the current selected system theme.
4. No refresh for comments.

What's nice about this app is the Hamburger is swipable and yet it still use Pivot navigation nicely. The Hamburger swipe is smooth and very responsive so far, not like Groove Music which feels "hack" in implementation. This basic UX that Windows Central App achieve is what should be for Microsoft apps in Windows 10. Kudos to the dev!

I can see now why this is still a preview stage, there are alot of areas still needs work especially layout and some other aspects I found in comment section, there is a 1 pixel line of article still left at the top just below the header and when scrollling, you can scroll beyond the last comment which is all blank. Still overall its really usable at least, I haven't encountered crash so far since its new (I might encounter later).

First off, brilliant stuff guys! The app is fast and fluid and offers everything for starters. Without further ado, let me jump into feedback (because what better place to provide feedback other than windows central comments section :D) :-
ARTICLE READING AND COMMENTING
1) I was unsure about games category. Maybe it is included under feedback.
2) Articles need to open images full screen in-app with ability to zoom and download for off-line use.
3) Save articles to offline list.
4) Jump to last/top comment option.
5) Standard large text input box for replying to comments.
6) Ability to edit/delete comments. Again in large/standard text input box.
7) Send button when replying to comments.
FORUMS
1) Start up pages for recent forums, recent forum posts/comments by user like that in 8.1 app.
2) Thanks button. Add ability to post images and attachments in comments/posts. In-app ability to view, zoom and download forum images.
3) Jumping to first/last forum comment. Ability to tag forum comment through number and to jump through it and to it.
MOBILE NATIONS ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
1) Ability to edit user name, password and avatar.
2) Manage all account settings in-app like notifications, email notifications, no of likes, thanks etc.
3) Account inbox and mail reading/sending ability with attachments.

Nice job on the app and thanks for releasing it to the masses. I know people such as myself was waiting to see what the W10 version of the app would do. Used it on W10 and mobile and it's great, being a beta release. Can't wait to see what it is capable of once at 100%.

I'm now spoiled by the dark theme now. I wonder if it can be implemented to the website as well? Haha.

Like the design of the new app. Should be a fantastic app once all the kinks are ironed out in the coming weeks. Right now it is just what it says it is... a beta! Not much usable. Freezes all the time on my 950 running 107. I will keep checking it out after each update and switch over when it becomes stable.

Hopefully links to Windows 10 apps will now work from within the WC app. With the old version I had to view the article in the browser to get the link. Thanks for all of the great work! I can't wait to use it.

So first and foremost, the settings is what I would like to see back the most. The shake to refresh, haptic feedback etc... Also there is actually a lot of design work and polish I think is needed. Otherwise looking nice and keep up the great work.

What's the point of a universal app as long as Windows Phone (or Mobile) is dead? At least this is what I read in almost every article on this site. And I don't think editors just take us as fools with click bait news.